Opportunities and challenges

INTRODUCTION

OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES

The character of many of New Zealand’s small towns and cities is strongly defined by their heritage buildings and old building stock. Compared with the larger towns and cities, slower growth in these places has seen fewer older buildings being demolished and fewer new buildings developed, meaning older buildings make up a higher proportion of the overall building stock.

These buildings give these towns and cities their unique identities. They are familiar to and often well loved by their local communities, both for their architectural beauty and for the stories they tell about local places. They have often been important sites of commerce, industry, worship or residence for many years. Their retention, reuse and preservation result in substantial benefits for many of these towns and cities, when their potential can be unlocked. As part of comprehensive, coordinated and collaborative efforts, they can become drivers of broader positive change in these places.

While these buildings may impart a unique character to small towns and cities, in contemporary New Zealand there are a growing number of challenges to their long-term utility and survival. These challenges affect not only individual owners and businesses, but also councils and the communities more generally.

One of the key challenges relates to changing regulatory requirements, particularly around the need for earthquake-strengthening and also the fire and accessibility upgrades that may be triggered independently or as a result of earthquake-strengthening work. The Government’s legislative changes following the Canterbury earthquakes have led to shorter timeframes to earthquake-strengthen buildings in high-risk seismic zones. In many small towns and cities, the costs of these upgrades in comparison to the potential future economic returns of the buildings will be difficult to reconcile. This increases the risk that many buildings will simply be demolished, many heritage buildings lost, and unique heritage areas, towns and cities irreversibly changed.

The repercussions of this challenge reach further than just the loss of heritage buildings. It also affects the integrity, viability and vibrancy of the places themselves, especially where buildings are left unmaintained or deteriorating or are demolished. With new buildings generally being far more expensive to lease than older ones, or where it is simply not financially viable to replace buildings at all, a proliferation of vacant sites can result.

The importance of older buildings as homes for the arts, cultural, creative, start-up and not-for-profit sectors and social/community groups and activities should not be underestimated. Nor should their potential for reduced business diversity, community services and cultural activities resulting from their demolition.

For many small towns and cities, meeting upgrade requirements is already a challenge, especially where there is low or negligible growth. A heightened sensitivity to perceptions of safety for employees and customers, and specific percentages of New Building Standard requirements for businesses, government agencies, insurers and banks, has led some businesses and service providers to relocate out of older buildings, either to newer buildings elsewhere or to leave some towns entirely. In some cases safety concerns or issues around the costs of upgrades appear to have influenced or justified decisions to downgrade services in small towns and cities. These decisions can have significant negative effects on small towns, where the loss of even one or two key services or businesses can substantially undermine accessibility, other businesses and local residents’ quality of life. Frustratingly, such decisions are most often outside the control or influence of councils.

In many small towns and cities, the same lack of development that has resulted in the survival of older buildings now threatens their future survival. Low tenant demand, rental returns and capital gains, changing retail and business trends and fewer adaptive reuse options exacerbate the challenges presented by upgrade requirements in trying to maintain or enhance the financial viability of buildings. Without increased returns to offset upgrade costs, a growing number of buildings will become uneconomic, making their demolition more likely. Compounding this issue is the fact that the longer many buildings are empty and under-maintained, the higher are the costs of their rehabilitation and upgrading. In some other locations, renewed urban growth is putting heritage at risk. The effects of strong urban growth are felt not only in the expansion and intensification of large centres like Auckland and Christchurch, but also as this growth spills over into small towns and cities within commuting distance, or those seen as alternative lifestyle choices to the major centres. While such growth can assist the reuse and retention of heritage buildings, factors such as rapid growth, property speculation, a lack of good strategic planning and guidance on how to integrate old and new, and insufficient provisions and incentives for protection can lead to negative outcomes for heritage. Building owners’ and tenants’ confidence in community and local and central government commitments to strategies for wide urban renewal, with a focus on the redevelopment of existing building stock, can influence their decisions on the future use of and investment in their buildings.

While these and other issues are certainly creating a challenging environment, recent developments in New Zealand and overseas have demonstrated that given the right incentives, direction, assistance and encouragement, significant positive heritage outcomes are possible. In fact, some places actually appear to have been able to create positive heritage restoration and adaptive reuse momentum on a broader scale out of a necessity to upgrade buildings. Others have been able to harness or encourage new growth in their places by focusing on development and tourism, for example, in or around their heritage buildings and identities. These success stories may not only deliver positive heritage results but also have much broader social, economic and cultural outcomes, transforming their respective towns and regions.